Getting out of the Crystal
by redpiratejeanine
Summary: So Annie is... Getting out of the Crystal basically. Like Hanji is crazy about her and wants to make experiments with her she keeps her locked in a tiny room with the lighsts shut out. But she s not alone because Armin is there to help her.
1. Chapter 1

_Annie_

_Crack. Crick. Crack._

I hear the crystal breaking in front of me and someone yelling at me. _That´s impossible, _I think to myself. _They can´t break it. _I have been already three weeks like this. I can´t let them capture me, I can´t get out without someone killing me for what I've done. All the deaths that shouldn´t happen. All I've done, because of him.

I can hear the voice of my father in my head. _Treat the whole world as your enemy. I´m sorry I trained you so hard. Last favor. _And then I hear another voice.

"Get out you coward!" she yells "Come out and pay for what you´ve done!" it´s Zoe.

As soon as she can she´ll start making experiments on me unless I get to escape. The thing is, I won´t be able to escape. I´m hundreds of feet underground and there is probably a group of people ready to kill me if I try to do something.

_Crack._

I feel air coming in the crystal and a collective gasp outside. The crystal is shattering because I'm becoming weaker and weaker. I try to hold it some more time before it breaks open and I am surrounded by angry soldiers willing to kill me for killing their friends, family, and neighbors. _Crack._ I can´t hold it any longer. I let myself go limb and all the crystal starts to turn to vapor, from the top to the bottom. I feel air and screams. I feel sick and weak.

The crystal finishes evaporating and I fall to the ground hard and gasp for air. I breathe hard and cough as I turn to fetal position on the floor. I hear my name being called. Not with rage and anger, but a worried voice. I don´t see who it is, I still have my eyes shut closed. I shiver and cough more, trying to breathe properly, but I am hundreds of feet below, there is no fresh air here.

I hear struggles and a _thump. _Someone falls to the ground and groans but from what I can hear, he is still trying to approach me. Suddenly no air fills my lungs and I can´t breathe. I turn to face up and grab my throat thinking it will help me breathe, but I can´t. I shot my eyes open when I hear him.

"She can´t breathe! Help her!" _Armin_. He still wants to help me, after all I've done, he still helps me. I desperately look towards him with wild eyes, pleading for help. The guards are still holding him back but he kicks and moves, trying to break free. He head-butts one guard and kicks the other and they let him go. He stands in front of me to see the crowd and says "She´s important! She can´t die!" He crouches over me but they take him back again.

I feel sick and roll over myself so I'm facing the floor again. I support myself with my hands and knees and throw up. I feel dizzy again but manage to crawl to someone´s feet. I fall on myself and the person I crawled to crouches and holds my neck. She tilts my head up and I see into deep brown eyes full of rage and amusement.

"She won´t die, I won´t kill her" Zoe, she says loud enough for everyone to listen and then whispers "I´m going to devour you instead"

I widen my eyes and gather up enough strength to head-butt her and she winces and rubs her forehead. Then I feel something going into my neck, a needle, and I fall asleep immediately.

I wake up to someone slapping me hard. I try to raise my hands to my face, but when I do, I can´t. I look to the side and see my left hand is right beside my neck. I turn to see the other side and my right hand is also beside my neck and my arms are bent beside me. I´m stuck to the floor in a dark room. I start breathing hard and when I look up I see Zoe is crouching over me with each leg to each side of my body. She´s smiling with a maniac look in her face, amusement to see me struggling. I try to break free and move my head and body to get her off of me, but she doesn´t even blink. I keep struggling until she holds me steady with one hand on my chin. She holds up a needle and I struggle even more kicking my legs to nothing.

She laughs and says "for all the deaths you caused" she presses my face harder "I´m gonna make you suffer"


	2. Chapter 2

_Armin_

"Let me see her" I demand to the guard.

I just got out of a room where they locked me after I saw Annie almost die when she came out of the crystal. I felt like a huge rock had been inside my stomach until I saw her out of it and the rock just disappeared. Then I saw her fall out of it and called her to see if she was alive. She stopped breathing and I followed my instincts and run to help but the guards held me back until I made it to her. Then Zoe just injected something to her and she fell asleep almost immediately, but I thought she was dead so I yelled at her and that´s how I ended in the room.

"No" he says coldly at me and then smiles a little, but from pure anger "she´s testing he resistance, she´s been in there for about an hour now"

"They´re _torturing_ Annie?" I ask surprised but worried

"The _female titan_" he corrects me "she´s not _Annie_ anymore. Or _T-239 _if you wish"

I hear a violent scream and a laugh after it, from different persons. The door opens and Zoe comes out with a malicious smile on her face and a box full of needles with dark red liquid, each with different tags on them, a lot of them. I look at her angrily, but she just smiles.

"Let´s see if she can resist the next one" she looks at me with amusement "I don´t understand how you can _still_ _like_ her and _help _her, after all she has done, and you can still forgive her?" she looks at me disappointedly.

"I will not help if you torture her like that" I say angrily "I don't care what she has done, it is done now, we can´t change that. But we can find a way to defeat the titans, and torturing one… one girl that probably knows the answer, will not help us defeat them. You have no right to torture her"

"What a waste of knowledge, then, if you can´t help us" she turns and goes away

"Now _let me in_" I say to the guard and he opens the door.

I rush inside. It is a small dark room only lit by the light in the corridor, which is not much given that we are still underground. I find a small switch in the wall, which apparently Zoe never used, and turn it on. I ball my fists when I see her. But I'm not angry at her, I'm angry at Zoe for whatever she has done to her.

She kicks and moves like a snake when I turn on the lights, struggling to get free. She is clamped against the floor by two pieces of metal that are over her wrists. She´s breathing hard enough for me to hear and her eyes are full of fear and wilderness. She has a stripe of cloth through her mouth and seems desperate to get it out. She has her eyes shut, so she doesn´t see me. It´s hard to see her like this, defenseless, scared.

She is stammering "s-stop, stop, stop, i-it hurts, it h-hurts" I don´t know what is hurting her so I get closer to her. Her forehead is soaked with sweat and her short blonde hair is a mess in her head. I kneel to her side and pull out a bottle of water.

"Annie" I say and she opens her wild blue eyes searching for me, and when she does, I see the fear in her eyes, threatening her to give up. She shakes her head. I see panic over her eyes. I sit the bottle by my side and lift her head slowly taking out the stripe of cloth off her mouth.

She coughs and shakes. I look at the metal straps holding her to the ground. She has bruises around it and it is bright red all around. She has been struggling. Her legs are no longer kicking and she is barefoot. She is using all white, her hoodie and white pants. I raise the bottle to her lips but she turns her head. I try again but wherever I put the bottle she moves her head to the opposite side avoiding it.

"You have to drink" I say but she shakes her head "It wasn´t your fault" I scowl at her "You can´t die here, I won´t let that happen. I don´t care what you´ve done. Now drink" I push the bottle to her lips and she finally opens them, still staring me, and she starts drinking. She doesn´t rest for air until the bottle is empty and she coughs, bouncing off the ground, but I can´t help her.

I take out slowly a needle while she is still coughing and a little bottle with a purple liquid. I put the needle and suck up the liquid from the little bottle until it´s full. She opens her eyes and turns her head and, as soon as she sees the needle, starts kicking again and struggling until her wrists are bleeding and I have to put my hand over her mouth so she doesn´t scream. She kicks and struggles but I hold her steady until she gets tired and stops.

"I´m not gonna hurt you" I say struggling to keep her down, but she doesn´t stop.

"Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmmm!" she says under the palm of my hand. I separate my fingers a little to hear her "I don´t trust anyone!" she keeps saying.

"I won´t hurt you" I try to convince her "It will take out the pain. It will help you. Just stop struggling! You´re hurting yourself!"

I raise the needle with one hand and she widens her eyes and struggles harder. Now I understand why she is struggling so much, she thinks I'm Zoe. She was in the same position I am now, trying to inject her something, torturing her. I roll to her side so I am in the same position as her, with the needle in one hand.

"I don´t care if you don´t trust me" I say kneeling. I hold the needle in one hand high and clasp the other above her mouth to keep her from screaming "I will shut your pain out"


	3. Chapter 3

_Annie_

She´s torturing me again. She already took thirty samples from my blood, digging the needle hard and merciless into my skin in thirty different places. I look at her shadow in front of me, I can´t see her face, but I know it´s her, it must be her. She´s pressing her palm against my mouth and with the other she´s holding another needle above her head.

My wrists hurt as I struggle to let her go off me, as the needle gets closer. I struggle and struggle until my wrists are bleeding. _I won´t give up, I won´t give up, _I say to myself. _Hate everyone, the whole world is your enemy. _I feel the needle digging into my neck. It hurts, it hurts. But after a few seconds the pain is gone, my breaths even, and there is another person beside me.

I feel calm when I see the too-blue eyes, full of worry and sadness. I stop struggling and hear him sigh in relief. I see his blonde straight hair hovering in front of his eyes. He drops his head and buries his face in his hands. Then he straightens and stares at me relieved.

"I told you it would cut out the pain" he says "I thought you had gone insane"

I try to shift but when I do pain goes all through my arms. I´m still stuck to the floor in a little room, too little, too little. I hadn´t noticed until the lights turned on, until now. I start breathing hard and try to move my get out. I stare at him again.

"Claus-Claustro-Claustrophobia" I manage to say and swallow hard.

He immediately reaches for the metal straps. I can´t see what he´s doing because I have my eyes shut closed. _Cling. Cling. Cling, _I hear, and open my eyes. I stretch out my arms slowly, afraid it will hurt. But I can stretch them completely. I sit rapidly and hug my knees, burying my face in them. I rock back and forth, the walls closing around me. I feel a hand on my shoulder.

He´s in front of me but I won´t look up. They won´t let me get out of here, out of this little room. I have to stay calm and concentrate in staying alive. The door is closed, I can´t get out of here, not even if I try, I wouldn´t make it to the next hallway.

I look up to his too-blue eyes; they are steady, worried, calm. He wants to help me, I won´t let him, I hate everyone like my dad told me to. I feel the walls closing around me, but I still look at him, serious and hoping he will get out of here, to leave me alone. I rock back and forth, trying to stay calm, breathe in and out, trying not to have a heart-attack. I can´t stay calm, the walls keep getting closer and closer, cutting my air-supply, making me sick and scared.

I feel an arm in my back and another one under my knees. I turn to shout at him for touching me but stop when I see his gentle smile and let him carry me, he is the least of my problems right now. He sits in the corner where I can see the room and the walls seem to slow down a little. I´m still breathing too hard and I can hear his slow steady calm breathing.

"Follow my breaths" he says and I nod.


	4. Chapter 4

_Armin_

She´s calming down, finally. I hear her breaths steadying at last and she´s not shaking anymore. I´ve been rocking her back and forth for an hour now but I'm in no hurry to leave her alone, strapped to the floor again. It just wouldn´t feel right. She´s fast asleep but keeps muttering under her breaths something about her father. I slowly get up and lie her on the floor, gently so she doesn´t wake up. I won´t strap her to the floor like Zoe did, dangerous or not, she´s a human being.

I take out a blanket from my bag and cover her with it. I lean down and kiss her forehead and then walk to the door. I turn off the lights and wonder if they are ever going to be turned on again. I get out and close the door behind me slowly.

Zoe is right in front of me, with new clean needles but I stand in front of the door to keep her out of the room. She scowls at me and then smiles wickedly.

"What have you done to her?" I hiss at her but she just keeps smiling.

"Ah! I have been testing it´s resistance and taking a few samples of blood. It has reacted violently and the female titan seems to be changing emotionally" she talks about her like an _it. _

"_She´s _not an _it_ and you won´t hurt her anymore, I won´t let you do that you heartless monster" I scowl at her "you won´t get any answers like this"

"You can´t tell me what to do Armin" she says "I'm your superior you can´t-"

"If you try to get answers throughout pain she will react in the same way, you´ll make her angrier. If she has the opportunity to do something she will because she is scared and believes no one is her friend. She thinks she can trust no one so she will keep her secrets to herself and won´t tell them under any circumstances. If you make her belief you can help her she will answer. And right now," I open the door so she can see her "I'm apparently the only one she trusts" She stays silent, like she´s processing information, analyzing every piece of it. "You have always been curious about how they think, how they feel, what they know. You can only know the answers through her"

She doesn´t speak, she just stares at me, then back at her, then back at me. She´s analyzing, connecting puzzle pieces in her mind, then finding a new solution to the problem. She sighs.

"Maybe you´re right" she says coldly "We´ll… talk to her. Get the answers" I still look at her, waiting "Without violence or torture"


End file.
